No need to be raise expectations is what I get from this story. They are being convervative, IMHO.
dailynews.yahoo.com
Wednesday November 15 7:13 PM ET
Applied Materials 4th-Qtr Profits Top Forecasts
By Duncan Martell
SAN FRANCISCO (Reuters) - Applied Materials Inc. (NasdaqNM:AMAT - news), the biggest maker of semiconductor equipment, on Wednesday reported fiscal fourth-quarter profits that topped analyst forecasts as sales rose 81 percent, spurred by strong demand for its machines that make computer chips.
The Santa Clara, Calif.-based company said that earnings before one-time items more than doubled to $664 million, or 77 cents a share, from $303 million, or 37 cents, a year ago. Sales rose to $2.92 billion from $1.61 billion.
The company was forecast on average by analysts to earn 76 cents a share, according to First Call/Thomson Financial.
Although analysts are now saying that the semiconductor market is slowing slightly, Applied Materials continues to mark gains as the industry moves to the latest generation of chipmaking equipment that helps to boost productivity and cut costs. Supply is starting to catch up with demand, although it hasn't hurt Applied yet because it's generally considered a lagging indicator for demand in the chip market.
``Since we are just at the beginning of the Information Age, we have tremendous growth opportunities ahead, as global demand for electronics products and the number of applications for semiconductors are both increasing,'' said Jim Morgan, chairman and chief executive in a statement.
Although the company turned in an impressive quarter, executives expressed some caution about sales in the first quarter and perhaps beyond because of warnings from mobile phone makers that sales would not be as high in 2000 as many were expecting.
``With all the uncertainty out there it's kind of ridiculous for us to get people's expectations yanked up too high,'' Morgan said in an interview. ``We identify a lot of business out there we just have to be cautious as to when we believe a customer will actually sign the piece of paper'' for the order.
Shares of Applied Materials were little changed at $41-5/16 in late trading on Nasdaq. The shares are well off their year-high of $115 and up slightly from a year-low of $38-1/2. In trading after the close, shares traded on Instinet at $47.
The company also said on a conference call to discuss the results with analysts that it sees first-quarter earnings per share of 75 cents to 58 cents; analysts had been expecting 80 cents. It also sees first-quarter sales of $2.90 billion $2.95 billion.
Orders for Applied Materials' equipment more than doubled to $3.6 billion in the quarter from $1.69 billion a year ago and was up 10 percent from $3.28 billion in the preceding third quarter, Applied said. Backlog at the end of the quarter rose to $4.38 billion from $3.69 billion at the end of the third quarter.
The company also widened its gross margin -- the percentage of sales left after subtracting product costs -- from the year-ago quarter and in the third quarter. Fourth-quarter gross margin was 51.7 percent, third-quarter gross margin was 50.9 percent and the year-ago fourth quarter's gross margin was 49.6 percent. |
